Amish Country Barn store in Concord shuttered

Retailer files Chapter 7 bankruptcy

The Amish Country Barn store in Concord has gone out of business and on Wednesday filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection.

However, a Tilton store with the same name and merchandise remains open and will honor orders and gift certificates from the Concord store, said Tim LeClair, part-owner of Amish Country Barn, LLC.

“None of our customers will be burned in any way shape or form,” he said. “They won’t be affected except to make that trip up to Tilton.”

LeClair opened the Concord store six years ago with his father. It sold a variety of furniture and accessories in the Pennsylvania Dutch style. Business was steady, said LeClair, but the company fell deep in debt when it tried to open up a third store in Stratham in December 2013. The store closed after a few months, and the company sold off the Tilton store shortly afterwards in February 2013 to LeClair’s older brother, Michael, while trying to work with the banks to restructure the debt.

Michael, who had no ownership stake in the LLC, has turned the Tilton store around, and it is thriving, Tim said.

According to the filings, the Concord store had $75,000 in assets and more than $675,000 in liabilities. Much of that money -- some $333,000 -- was owed to Bank of New Hampshire and GE Capital.

One creditor recently repossessed about $12,000 worth of furniture and $2,000 of primitive stitches, according to the filing.

A bankruptcy filing would put a stop to any more repossession.

“We have an obligation to make sure that all customers get what they’ve paid for, and this is the best way for us to make that happen,” LeClair said on the Amish Country Store Facebook page.

On Facebook, LeClair thanked and apologized to his customers, whom he called “the most loyal and friendliest customer base of any business I know.” He also expressed his hope that the store would reopen in the future.

“It might be under a different ownership, but it would be a similar product line. We are not willing to throw in the towel quite yet,” he told NHBR.

This article appears in the April 18 2014 issue of New Hampshire Business Review